Читать книгу A Thousand Miles an Hour - Herbert Strang - Страница 5

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DERRICK and his cousin often smiled in after days at this abrupt, unpromising opening of their friendship with Pat Heneky. At the moment the sight of a human being was so welcome that they were not disposed to resent a tone and manner which in other circumstances they might have found offensive. They hastened through the archway, Derrick exclaiming impulsively:

"Did Juan send you?"

"He did not, whoever Juan may be," said the stranger. He paused, looking from one to the other searchingly. "One English, t'other a dago," he murmured as if to himself. "Lost, I reckon?"

"Yes. We were chasing a tapir yesterday evening," said Derrick, "and couldn't find our way back."

"Catch the tapir?"

"No, unluckily."

There was another pause. The cousins looked with curiosity at this stranger, whose voice was soft and musical, but whose manner was brusque and off-hand. He was tall, very lean, his face deeply bronzed, his eyes light grey, his hair and beard mouse-coloured and slightly grizzled. He wore a dirty flannel shirt open at the neck, frayed corduroy breeches, buckskin leggings much the worse for wear, and boots that had seen neither dubbin nor blacking for many a day. A rifle was slung across his back; a revolver and a knife stuck conspicuously out of his belt; a bandolier crossed one shoulder; from the strap across the other hung a wallet and a water-bottle.

"Hungry, I reckon?" he said.

"Rather," Derrick acknowledged.

"And thirsty?"

"No; we've had a drink."

The stranger jerked his wallet to the front, undid the button, and took out a couple of ship's biscuits, somewhat soft to the touch.

"Can't spare any more," he said. "Breakfast presently. Ye'd better sit down."

Obediently as children the lads sat down on the rocky ground, crossed their legs, and began to eat the biscuits. The man leant against the side of the archway watching them.

"Heard your shots last evening," he said presently. "I reckon they was yours?"

"Yes," said Pedro. "I fired to attract Juan."

"Ah! Your Juan: maybe a shortish fellow, red shirt half-breed, eh?"

"That's the man," said Pedro."

"Saw him running through the jungle a while before I heard your shots. 'Sure 'tis a mighty hurry he's in,' thinks I. Then came the shots: Indians about?"

He took out a pipe, filled and lit it.

"I lay low," he went on. "Don't look for trouble. If 'twas not Indians, might be hunters. But when I heard no more shots, reckoned someone was lost and firing distress signals. Scouted around and struck your trail, a terrible zigzag, I'm telling you. It fell dark: 'twas too late to come up with you; I fixed myself up in a tree; and indeed I cursed you."

"We're sorry," murmured Derrick.

"And well ye might be, for 'twas the uneasiest night as ever I spent, and I've spent a many, and my canoe waiting for me not so far away.

"I wonder you bothered," said Derrick.

"That's because you're a tenderfoot. I've been lost myself; 'tis the way of going mad; I'd not wish it for my worst enemy. And white man must help white man: I knew ye were white by your trail. And now I've found ye, and you've had a cave to sleep in while I was perched uneasy in a tree!"

Derrick could not help smiling at the man's resentful tone.

"Who are ye, then?" asked the stranger suddenly. "And what do ye be doing here, youngsters and all?"

"We are on our way to Amarante," said Pedro.

"Where?"

"Amarante, in Bolivia."

"Cordillera del Amarante?"

"Yes: do you know it?"

"I have been there."

"Then you know the Alvarez mine?"

"There were not any mines when I was there."

"Then that was a long time ago. We've been there five years."

"'Tis a matter of seven years since I was there. You speak English, but you don't look it. Who are ye, then?"

"I'm Pedro Alvarez; my mother's an English-woman; I went to school in England; this is my cousin, Derrick Moore."

"Maybe Irish, like myself?"

"Not that I know of," said Derrick.

"And that's a pity. Well, now we are introjuced and ye can go on with your story."

"You haven't told us your name, though," said Derrick.

"I did think ye might know it, there being only one of me," said the Irishman, with apparent seriousness. "There's few between the Andes and the sea but know Roving Pat, though there might be thousands that don't know Pat Heneky, my name by christening. But how do ye come into this country, then?"

Pedro related the occasion of their journey.

"But why did ye not bring your machinery through the Canal to the Pacific, and then over the mountain road? 'Twould have saved ye a month at least, maybe more."

"The road is blocked by a landslide; there was an earthquake about six months ago; and it will take a year or more to clear it. We didn't come up the river by choice, I assure you. It has been a very tiresome journey, very hard work. Food has run short, our Indians are in a very sullen temper. If we had known what we were in for, probably we shouldn't have attempted the journey at all. But we are booked for it now. We left our camp on the river bank to pursue the tapir; if you can help us to find our way back we shall be very grateful."

"Well, maybe I can do that, if you'll give me a notion where your camp lies."

"Just below the rapids, where the river runs through a gorge of red rock. We lost one of our canoes there, and best part of our supplies."

"I know the place. Well, we'll make tracks; but ye'll have to go a bit out of your way, and pick up my canoe. And you can put away a trifle more breakfast I'm thinking. Keep close to me."

He led the way into the forest, following their track for some distance, then breaking off on his own narrower trail, which the lads themselves would not have discovered. Presently he stopped among some trees that were rather taller than the rest.

"There's your breakfast," he said.

They looked up, and saw some russet-coloured fruits shaped like pears.

"'Tis the wild alligator pear," said Heneky, "and the flavour will make ye sing praises."

While the lads gathered the fruit, Heneky stuck his knife into the bark of another tree. From the cut oozed a thick milky juice which he allowed to trickle into his mouth and swallowed with every sign of satisfaction.

"The milk-tree," he said. "I reckon you'll like it if you like toffee. Not but what 'tis powerful sticky, but we'll come to a stream by and by, and then you can wash out your mouths."

The lads found the alligator pears delicious, and in a short time a heap of the large stone kernels lay around them. They were satisfied with a mere taste of the juice of the milk-tree; then, refreshed, they set off again after their guide. Though there was no apparent track he walked rapidly, finding his way through the undergrowth with the ease of a practised forester. Every now and then he turned to make sure that the lads were keeping up with him, and his grey eyes twinkled as he noticed how the exertion in the steaming heat was telling upon them.

"Sure 'tis hard upon ye," he said once, "but you'll feel the good of the exercise before long. It cleans ye, inside and out."

They arrived by and by at a narrow stream, flowing sluggishly through a tangle of vegetation. Along one bank was a faintly marked trail. Following this for about half an hour they came to a small open space, evidently cleared by the woodman's axe. In the midst stood a hike tent; a birch-bark canoe was drawn up on the bank, and by it squatted a young half-naked Indian, who sprang up when he heard their footsteps, and looked searchingly at Heneky's companions. To him Heneky addressed a few words in his own tongue. The man grunted, at once struck the tent and laid it in the canoe, then dragged that light craft down to the water.

"Get you up into the bows," said Heneky to the boys. "I'll sit astern, and as we are going down stream Bola can do the paddling for us all."

Under the Indian's strong even strokes the canoe rapidly dropped down the stream, which soon merged into a broad river.

"This is your river," said Heneky. "In an hour or so we will come to your camp, and then you'll have no more need of me."

He seemed disinclined for conversation, and sat with his elbows on his knees, looking meditatively into the floor of the canoe. Derrick felt some curiosity as to what had brought the Irishman into these tropical wilds, and what occupation he followed; but the impassivity of the hard-bitten face forbade questions.

In about an hour they came within sight of the gorge, and rounding a bend, opened up the bluff where they had camped the day before.

"I don't see any sign of our party," said Derrick. "Nor of our canoes," added Pedro. "It looks as though Juan has allowed the men to go back after all."

"Unless they have made a portage and gone on."

"This Juan of yours," said Heneky, with a sudden return to actualities: "you know him well?"

"We don't really know him at all," said Pedro. "He met us at San Antonio-was engaged by a friend of my mother's."

Heneky ordered his Indian to run the canoe into the bank below the bluff, and there the whole party disembarked. There were traces of the previous day's encampment, and the number of empty tins lying about suggested that the Indians had made free with the remaining provisions. For the first time a misgiving seized upon the lads: had Juan returned safely to camp, or had he been lost, like themselves, and found no helper? Surely, if he had come back he would not have allowed the Indians to get out of hand. It seemed only too likely that the discontented crews had taken advantage of the absence of all their superiors to desert.

"Very awkward for us if they have," remarked Pedro. "Not so awkward as it would have been if we hadn't met Heneky," said Derrick. "At the worst I daresay he will take us on in his canoe. We could pay him, of course."

At this moment Heneky returned from a solitary reconnaissance some little distance upstream.

"There's no sign of a portage," he said. "It looks as if your men have carried out their threat."

"And taken Juan with them?" said Derrick.

"Maybe; maybe thrown him into the river. Why, what's this?"

He was standing facing the river; the others had their backs to it. Turning at his words, they saw him pointing to a spot below the bluff where the stream ran shallow. Just below the surface they caught sight of the gleam of metal. They hastened down the bank. At Heneky's order the Indian waded into the water and fished up the gleaming object. It was a cylindrical bar of steel.

"Part of our cargo," said Derrick in amazement.

"And there's more," said Heneky. "I'm afraid the men jettisoned that machinery of yours."

"Worse and worse," said Derrick.

He stripped off his boots, entered the water and plunging his arm in, brought out a canvas-covered package.

"There's no doubt about it," he said. "They've dumped our stuff here to lighten the canoes and bolted."

"And taken everything else, I reckon," said Heneky. "The machinery would be no use to them, but your personal belongings would make 'em rich."

"And they've gone downstream: is there any chance of catching them?" Derrick asked.

"'Tis some twenty hours since you left them," said Heneky, "but they wouldn't bolt at once, expecting you to return. And they wouldn't travel by night. They've had maybe four or five hours' start: the canoes are dug-outs?"

"Yes."

"Then I think we can do it, Bola and me. We'll try, anyway."

Two minutes later Heneky and his Indian, each plying a paddle, were driving the birch-bark canoe at a spanking pace downstream. In about an hour they came to the fork where on the previous day there had been a difference of opinion as to which branch of the river should be taken. Heneky showed no hesitation, but swung the canoe round into the branch that struck away to the south.

"Why not go straight down?" Derrick asked.

"Because they came straight up," replied Heneky.

"That's reason enough for their choosing this arm. And as they are now going upstream, and won't suppose you've any means of chasing them, I shouldn't be surprised if we overhaul them pretty quickly."

Even against the current the light canoe made rapid progress. The paddles moved with the regularity of clockwork, and Derrick admired the ease and dexterity with which Heneky and his Indian, working in perfect accord, steered their craft at the bends so as to keep the shortest course. But it was not until more than two hours later that, shaving the bank at one of these bends, Bola suddenly exclaimed that he saw canoes ahead. Heneky instantly steered towards the left bank, to get cover from the trees that overhung the river, and only when he was less than a hundred yards behind the dug-outs did he come openly into midstream.

All unsuspicious of pursuit, the runaway Indians were paddling slowly.

"Let off your gun," said Heneky to Pedro.

At the sound of the shot the Indians turned their heads, and hung upon their paddles. The canoes swung broadside to the current. Next moment a shout broke from the men, and in the foremost canoe Juan, standing upright, waved his arms with every sign of delighted welcome.